He was a man who lived in such an artificial world that he assumed the rest of us lied as easily as he did himself. Well.
I nodded. ‘He is alive. I’m sure he’ll come tomorrow.’
Themistocles shook his head. ‘I was a fool to speak ill of the King of Sparta, whom I too loved,’ he said.
Cimon nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You lost Eurybiades there.’
Themistocles all but glowed in the firelight and his eyes were wide — almost mad. ‘I’ll go to him and reason with him,’ he said. He leapt to his feet and all but ran into the darkness.
Well, as I said, their tents were close together on the headland.
I sipped my wine and thought, or rethought, many of the thoughts I’ve just related to you. Undying fame. Briseis. My house in Plataea. My son and my daughter, my future and the battle.
Siccinius paused by me and poured. ‘May I ask my lord a question?’ he asked.
Sycophantic slaves are annoying, but think of how hard it is to be them, eh? I have been. To always get the right tone — does this one want slavish manners or straight talk? How about this one?
I tried not to snap at him. ‘Speak up,’ I said, or something equally surly. No man enjoys having his deep thoughts interrupted by a slave.
‘Do you truly speak Persian?’ he asked.
‘I do,’ I answered, in that language.
‘As do I,’ Siccinius said. ‘You led the embassy of the Greeks to Susa, did you not?’
I was suddenly suspicious of this man, and suspicious that Themistocles had a Persian-speaking slave.
Listen — Themistocles never wanted anything but his own glory. There were men among us who whispered that he would be perfectly content to lead the Athenian fleet into exile, because he would be the chief of it, and the lord of the new city. If you have been listening all these nights, you know that I think that most of the Athenians — certainly the whole current crop, Pericles included — would sell their own mothers to lord it as tyrant of Athens.
At any rate, before I could question the man further, Themistocles returned from Eurybiades.
‘He refused to listen to me,’ he said.
Cimon moaned.
Themistocles pounded one fist into his other hand. ‘By the gods,’ he swore, ‘there must be another way.’
Cimon looked up. ‘It is the curse of the gods on the Greeks,’ he said. ‘We can never be as one. We compete against each other in all things and we hate each other. We cannot unite.’
‘Think of Lade,’ I said. ‘We would have won there and saved all this fighting, had only the men of Samos not betrayed us.’
‘Think how often we were betrayed during the fighting in Ionia,’ Cimon said. ‘By my ancestor Ajax, my father was a pirate, but he kept his word better than many lords.’
Themistocles looked at me across the fire. ‘The Persians use our petty quarrels against us,’ he said. ‘And there is always Persian gold to help the cause of treason. It is part of their way of conquering and holding an empire.’ He was speaking aloud, but he was thinking — I could see it.
So could Cimon.
‘You aren’t proposing we sell ourselves to the Persians,’ he asked. His voice was light, but I could hear the steel in it.
Themistocles shot to his feet. ‘By Zeus, lord of kings and free men, I propose the very thing — and tonight, at that.’
There is a point at which a mad, bad plan is merely a good, if daring, plan. It is a tribute to our desperation that when Themistocles outlined his notion, there was almost no argument.
My part in the plan was simple. And I knew the way, and I had a triakonter on my part of the beach, ready for sea.
Walking back over the headland, Xanthippus laughed bitterly. ‘Is this how we have to behave to do what is right?’ he asked. ‘By Poseidon, I hate the Spartans.’
It was dark, but not yet late, and there were people at most of the fires, eating and drinking. The whole of the beaches of Salamis had something of the air of a desperate festival.
We walked together, mostly in silence. Xanthippus had decided that he didn’t like me, and yet he craved company. We were about to do a reckless thing that could dishonour us all. I could tell he had little stomach for it and I, in turn, didn’t like him much either, but we were allies.
War is complicated.
At his tents, we stopped. ‘Let me offer you a cup of wine,’ he said, with poor grace. He didn’t really want to offer one to me, I could tell, and I didn’t want his wine anyway.
‘No,’ I said. I had a mission, and I would need most of the dark part of night to accomplish it. ‘My thanks, Xanthippus,’ I said, although I owed him no thanks.
‘Is that the Plataean, my dear?’ called a woman’s voice from the darkness.
‘Please keep your voice down, my dear,’ Xanthippus said to the tent.
Agariste appeared from the tent door. ‘Arimnestos,’ she said, taking my hand. ‘What a pleasure to see you.
‘He is on an urgent errand and can scarcely linger,’ her husband shot back.
Agariste waved a ladylike hand and a beautiful young Thracian girl appeared — dark hair piled on her head and a tattoo of a horse inside her wrist that touched me. The Thracian girl smiled and poured me wine — wine I didn’t need — and like the Thracian woman, it was unwatered and very strong.
A stool was placed behind me.
‘I really must be away,’ I said.
Agariste nodded. ‘Of course, but this will only take a moment,’ she said. ‘Hipponax is your son?’
‘Of course!’ I said.
‘But you have no wife,’ she went on.
‘My wife died,’ I said.
‘Euphonia — yes. A most elegant and well-bred young woman. We were all surprised when she chose you.’
Well, what do you say to that?
But Agariste smiled in the near darkness. ‘I understand her better now, perhaps,’ she said. ‘Jocasta speaks very highly of you. Very highly indeed.’
I shook my head, far more confused by one Athenian oligarchic matron than by all the manoeuvres of the Persian fleet. ‘Jocasta?’ I asked.
She looked at me, her eyes narrowed. ‘The lady wife of Aristides?’ she said, her voice rising.
‘Of course,’ I said, feeling slow.
‘She is here, now,’ Agariste said. She smiled at her husband, but it was only to make him feel as if he was included in the conversation.
I really had no idea where all this was going. I rose to my feet and gave the Thracian girl my cup. Really, it was just an excuse to look at her.
She wasn’t looking at me, either. There’s age for you.
‘We have decided that it is time for you and Cleitus to end this foolish quarrel,’ Agariste said.
‘Of course,’ I answered. I smiled. ‘I really must go. I have a duty to perform. Perhaps your husband can explain.’
‘Well!’ she said. She also rose to her feet. ‘I shan’t keep a guest who is so very anxious to leave, but really!’
Xanthippus accompanied me a few steps into the darkness. ‘I apologise for my wife,’ he began.
‘Please!’ I said. ‘Please explain to her why I must go — I think she sees me as some sort of barbarian.’
I thought it was possible that Xanthippus, for all his democratic politics, also saw me as a bore and a bumpkin. Or as a notorious killer with a very thin veneer of manners.
Most of the time, that’s a fine reputation to have.
I slipped away, kicked off my sandals, and ran across the beach to my ships.
Leukas was the best small-boat handler. We chose thirty oarsmen, the best men, and I took Ka. A well-shot arrow might save us, but no amount of sword work was going to save anyone. It probably took us an hour to get that little triakonter to sea.
We ran west along the beaches to the headland and there we picked up Siccinius. He was waiting on the beach with Themistocles, and they embraced, and then Themistocles came aboard for a moment and clasped my hand. We unstepped the mast and while we waited we muffled every oar, which made them heavier but almost completely silent.